


All on The Prince's Seal

by alternateus



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Modern Royalty, Multi, Politics, Secret Relationship, i'll add characters as story progresses, royal au, segniss, simmvez, some plot-relevant but technically background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternateus/pseuds/alternateus
Summary: His Royal Highness, Lucas Alvez, is the prince of Valosia, second in line for the throne after his older sister and queen-to-be, Teresa. When a sudden event delays the coronation, suddenly the public’s view is focused on the prince and his personal life, endangering the secrecy of a relationship with a childhood friend-turned-lover and a commoner living in the palace, Matt Simmons. As it suddenly becomes a priority for the crown to maintain the image of stability in the court for the public eye as the nation’s faith on Luke as a political figure is wavering, it’s never been more vital that his image stays void of scandals… especially one as notable as a secret lover.





	1. When The Roses Bloom

Lucas had stared down the roses of his parents’ garden for almost forty summers, watched them bloom beneath the balcony every late May-early June, and hoped for one last brush of winter that’d make them curl back into their nubs, and delay the festivities for another week, month, millennium, even while knowing the days when the start of summer in Valosia would be counted from the flowers and not the Gregorian calendar were long gone. As a younger man, and boy before that, he’d still hoped that a dash of cold and snow would cancel the Day of the Roses altogether, and he could spend his day doing something more productive or more fun than in photo ops in the gardens listening to speeches about the place of monarchs in modern Valosia.

Today, though…

“ _The king will rise, the king will rise, when the roses bloom…_ ”

Luke blinked at the sound, turning his face away from the slowly rising dawn to face the bedroom towards the source of the sound—a familiar, if unexpected for the time: Matthew Simmons, still nude, head of jet-black hair still in a mess on top of his head as a sure sign he hadn’t been up for long.

Matt was—… Well, Matt  _had_  been Luke’s best friend in his teens, ever since the boy had become a protege of the palace some twenty years ago, and remained that way for years. And in the eyes of almost the entire palace, that is how the matter still was; Matt was his unofficial bodyguard, an old friend with the training of a soldier—one much longer than Luke’s, who, too had spent his years in the armed forces in the footsteps of his father before even trying to settle into the political side of regality—and whose presence despite the lack of nobility was not to be questioned to the royal family’s face… and that was it.

Which was to say that most of the court was completely unaware that Matt and Luke had been sharing a bed, and their hearts with it, for almost a decade now behind closed doors.

“Why are you reciting a nursery rhyme at me at five in the morning?” Luke asked, entirely unable to keep the fond smile off his face as he climbed back to bed to meet Matt’s form, a kiss as a wish of good morning. Matt’s lips responded, deepening the kiss and luring Luke to follow their pull just long enough before the man separated, the sensuality of the kiss lingering in his smirk but eyes filled with softness of more weight.

“You know why.”

Yeah, Luke knew. “You should be saying ‘queen’, then.”

On most years during Luke’s lifetime, Day of the Roses was nothing more than a pointless celebration of the beginning summer—a reason for most people to party in clubs covered with petals and glitter covering every surface, and a day for the royal family to do the exact opposite.

On most years during Luke’s lifetime, the reigning king—Luke and Teresa’s father—had not died within the year, meaning that Day of the Roses this year would be dedicated to the purpose for which it was created centuries ago: to coronate the crown prince or princess on the most beautiful day of the year.

This year, that person was to be Luke’s older sister, Teresa.

“Yeah, well—” Matt’s voice faded to nothing, sentence started without a thought to finish it before getting to what Luke could already tell he really wanted to know: “Still. How are you feeling?”

“Teresa’s going to be a great queen.”

Matt leaned his jaw against Luke’s shoulder. “Yeah—but how are  _you_  feeling?”

“I don’t know.”

He leaned back to hold Matt closer, and Matt took the hint, the two of them tangling themselves further around one another as Luke pressed his head to the mattress. “She’s not planning to get married. Tabloids have been tearing her apart for that. She told me she wants to get used to being queen first, to show her dedication to the monarchy, and then decide what to do with kids, and I support that, it’s just…”

“It’s just that the papers will decide their opinion on it before she has the chance to.”

“Yeah.”

Luke turned to look Matt in the eyes again, seeing the reflection of the sun rising in the eyes filled with nothing but understanding, and Luke couldn’t help but smile. The life of the court, the invisible obligations and the concerns of the royal family’s public image would have been lost on many: with Matt, there had never been an issue. Not only had spending two decades within the walls of the court left a visible impact on the man, but even as he’d entered for the first time, he’d carried an air of responsibility with him, an understanding of how others perceive him and how his actions impacted others beyond what many actual royals Luke had met in his life had. That added to a strategic mind and ability to read people… Matt would’ve not made a bad prince himself.

“Are you nervous about the coronat—?”

Before Luke had the chance to answer, Matt’s phone started beeping its alarm, marking that he had half an hour to return to his quarters before the staff would begin their morning routines and make an inconspicuous exit from Luke’s bedroom impossible. The beeping resulted in groans of familiar but still always too early frustration from both of them as Matt turned around to close the alarm and sit up. Luke stood up, grabbing Matt’s shirt from the floor on his side of the bed where it had landed the previous night, and kissed Matt once more, glowing in the familiarity and security of the feeling for the last time before the day would begin.

“I love you.”

“Love you too.” With that, Luke pulled out the wall panel next to his bed that concealed the entrance to a hallway connecting several of the bedrooms to one another and to a secret fire escape, and Matt was in his way.

The rose-coloured morning cloud vaporised with him, sobering Luke to the situation again. With a small sigh, he started readying himself, layers of ceremonial clothes covering him one by one. The jacket he left to wait on the chair—the tailor would want to check its condition one last time anyway. After that, he’d greet Matt again, this time as prince and security, call Phil to get an update on how escorting Teresa was going, and go wait behind the main doors until th—

An urgent knock on the door—one almost an hour early of the schedule—woke Luke from his thoughts.

“Prince Lucas! Prince Lucas!” a distressed female voice called, causing Luke’s blood suddenly go cold as he made his way to the door, suddenly hearing distant sounds of disorders echoing through the palace. He opened the door and was greeted with Jennifer Jareau, the press secretary of the nation, eyes wide open in horror. “Your Highness—”

She was still holding her phone, the call connected to Phil carrying over sounds of sirens, and the exact moment it dawned upon Luke what had happened was the moment JJ put her terror into words:

“Teresa is dead. You’re—you’re gonna be king now.”

All air escaped Luke’s body.

“I-I’m so sorry, Luke.”


	2. Not A Word

The news had arrived to Matt a minute late, the lining of the hallway blocking network signal until he was back in his own room, leaving him time to do nothing else but to redress himself in the suit he’d worn the previous day sans the tie, and head out of his room to face the disarray, phone constantly in communication with anyone he could get contact to. The second he’d gotten out of his door, Mr. Rossi, the late king’s personal bodyguard and one of the senior members of the security, had already tacked along with him, needed to know if Matt had talked with Luke yet, and commanded him down to the dining room they’d turned into a conference room for the occasion. The now king-to-be needed security, and Luke a friend down there.

The small dining room was filled with people by the time Matt got down there: security detail, staff of the palace, politicians… Everyone who had been invited to the coronation and everyone whose immediate work day was affected by the events was present, and going by the tone of the chatter in the room, not there to offer support.

_Luke should be grieving, not dealing with this._

Matt pushed himself through the crowd, spotting a small circle of empty space the rest of the people mass seemed to have centred around. As suspected, Luke sat in the middle of it, eyes focused far away, surrounded by other heads of the country, clearly not hearing much of it. A wave of grief struck through Matt at the sight, the way Luke’s shoulders slumped and how he was only barely keeping his expression check an exact replica of how he’d received the news of his father’s passing—only this time, the tears ready to gather in his eyes were even more visible.

Luke raised his gaze to him, their eyes met, and Matt had to fight back the urge to embrace him, lower himself down to Luke’s level and hold him while the other let his emotions run. He could see the exact same thought flash through Luke’s eyes, the initiative in how Luke repositioned himself as if to stand up before checking himself.

_Later,_ Matt promised, a small nod to Luke accompanying the thought. _As soon as we’re alone._

“Your Majesty—,” foreign minister Emily Prentiss started, the title startling them both, and Matt could easily see the annoyance and denial Luke as he turned to her.

“No. Highness. I’m not A King before a coronation.”

Prentiss sighed; Matt could see she didn’t want to be doing this either. Matt put down a hand on Luke’s shoulder, knowingly inching on the border of what would be seen as platonic affection and what romantic. Luke’s grief was palpable. Another thing seemed to reach Luke’s mind, and he turned to Matt again.

“Where’s Phil?”

“He was brought straight from the crash site to the hospital,” Jareau replied.

“What— _exactly_  happened?”

Matt felt Jennifer’s—JJ’s, really—eyes on him, took an intake of breath. He wished he wasn’t the one bringing the news, wished he could be holding Luke through it—in a room with dozens of people, with the press and the nation’s eyes right outside waiting for a word, that wasn’t possible—but could understand why Rossi had given him the brief to deliver to the prince.

“There was an explosion on the street.” He could feel the room tense up, hear the simultaneous intakes of breaths. “We don’t know if it was intentional or not. It hit the back of the car behind Teresa, and the force pushed it to the back of her car.”

The room was dead quiet in the pause Matt held. Luke was shaking under Matt’s hand.

“Two dead. Four injured. Phil is in intensive care. Luke… Teresa died instantly. We don’t know about Phil yet.”

Silence—the tentative, fearful kind—dominated the room. Luke’s eyes had developed a stare to infinity once again, and the stressed chatter had died to a terrifying quiet, with the sun still shining through the large windows, reminding of what the day was supposed to be about.

Luke still hadn’t said a word.

He needed time, he needed solitude, and most of all he needed half of these people to disappear into thin air so he could process this. Not two hours ago he and Matt had lived in a world where Teresa would be the queen for more or less the rest of their lives—now, they’d been thrown into a position neither of them had genuinely considered a possibility for years.

Matt could see Luke wasn’t processing this well.

“Everybody out.”

It received confused looks, even (especially) from Luke. The door opened, and Rossi slipped inside just in time for Matt to repeat himself: “Everybody who doesn’t need to be here, out. Jareau, Prentiss, Seger, Barnes—you can stay. Everyone else, out. You’ll be notified of developments when we have them.”

His words were still being unheard. No, not unheard, just ignored. Matt’s eyes linked with Rossi, who was quick to get the hint.

“Well, you heard the man.” Rossi opened the door, almost pushing the person closest to him to it. “Don’t you all have jobs to do?”

Finally, the message went through, and the mass of people started to move towards the door and Matt could breathe a little. It hadn’t technically been his call to make: as the only one in the room without an officially appointed title, everyone he’d just thrown out outranked him. Living in the palace, his military career, his closeness to Luke earned him some footing within the staff–he just wasn’t sure it was enough for what he just did.

He’d find out in a few hours.

Finally, the door closed again, and left inside were him, Luke, and the four women he’d requested stay: Emily Prentiss, the foreign minister; Clara Seger, the UN representative; Linda Barnes, the prime minister, and Jennifer Jareau, the press secretary—the people he’d made a rough estimate would be the ones needed to get information out. Prentiss had sat down on the table, Clara on the chair by her side, Barnes on the other side of the table, and JJ had walked to him and Luke. The mood of the room had changed from panic to a mix on anticipation and sympathy. Luke looked more like a human in grief now, rather than king incapable of decisions—exactly what Matt had intended.

As eyes turned one by one to Luke, he finally took an intake of breath, lifted his gaze to meet Barnes’s, the JJ’s. “I need to go to the hospital. To meet the people who got hurt—not just Phil. But him too.”

JJ gave a nod. “What are we going to tell the press?”

“That I’m visiting the hospital. We’ll celebrate Day of the Roses like any other year.”

“We’ll just close off the gardens closest to the palace,” Matt added, “we’ll say it’s to give the remaining Royal family privacy during their loss.”

“Your Highness… It’s the Day of the Roses. It’s a coronation day. Both of those sacred things have been torn with tragedy. The public will want to see you give a statement,” Barnes spoke.

“Yes. When I—…umh. Later. After we’ve visited the hospital.”

“We’ll give an early report to the press from there,” JJ followed, gaze focused on Matt for long enough to relay the message he was part of the ‘we’ before moving back to Barnes and Prentiss, “it’ll do good for them to see how this is affecting their future King.”

Matt gave a solemn nod, not entirely able to keep his discomfort off his face: he understood what she meant, and why this was important… but understanding it and accepting it enough to not feel the need to clench his jaw for how Luke must be feeling at the death of his sister being discussed as a PR event were two completely different things. Matt dropped his eyes to the floor, straightened his posture to keep himself in check. Not well enough, apparently: JJ took a step away from him as soon as he raised his eyes up to Emily and Clara.

“We’ll coordinate the international response for now,” Clara stated, standing up in sync with Prentiss, both women readying themselves to leave. The room’s attention moved to Barnes, who followed up with her own assessment:

“The law enforcement will give its info to the press. The chief of staff will be notified that the holiday will proceed. Prince Lucas—we’ll speak before your appearance.”

Matt shared a look with JJ— _now, to the hospital_ —before turning to Luke.

“I’ll drive you."


	3. Sit Still

The air stood still in the waiting room. Waiting to hear about Phil made the time go much slower than it actually did, and Matt wasn’t sure if to stand up and walk around the space to clear his mind or remain seated to appear calmer. Luke had chosen to sit down, and he and JJ had followed his lead to avoid having to think about it. Both men had changed to subtler clothing than those they’d worn in the meeting, mostly by changing to sweaters Matt had in an unpacked bag in the back of his car and called ahead to the hospital to let them know they were hoping for a discreet entry and time there, but Matt was still painfully aware, sitting in the waiting room chair, that the few other people there with them, waiting for their appointments were aware of their identity, and the attention was doing little to help the time go faster.

After the nurse had told them Phil was still in surgery, the conversation had quieted down to nothing. Luke had spent most of the time sitting down with his elbows on his knees, hands together in front of him, and Matt had been able to hold his forearm for the slightest sense of comfort and intimacy as they waited for an update.

Finally, the sound of doors opening with a sense of urgency down the hallway broke the silence of the room. The three of them stood up in sync just as the nurse walked in, making direct eye contact with Luke as he came.

“Your Highness, Mr Brooks is out of the surgery,” the young nurse started, “but he isn’t conscious yet. If you wanna see him, you can come in two at a time, but it’s unlikely he’ll wake up for hours.”

“Thank you,” Luke replied, and Matt turned to give a look to JJ.

She immediately caught on. “I’ll go outside to meet the reporters.”

Matt and Luke nodded, she gave a short curtsy and walked out of the room. The nurse held the door open, and the men followed him to the hallway. Matt reached to hold Luke’s hand for the length of a few metres before letting go in the fear of getting caught. A shared look told him Luke noticed and seemed grateful for the gesture, and it made Matt breath a little easier. He knew how important Phil was to Luke, and if the uncertainty of how the man would look like following an explosion and car crash was bothering him, he couldn’t even imagine what it was doing to Luke.

The nurse stopped outside of a room, and Matt could see Phil through the window. Even without the time to get a proper look, the strips of white stitches and bandages made a stark contrast against the man’s dark skin and gave the first warning to prepare for what they were about to see.

“The lower half of his body was wounded the worst. We did what we could—it’ll take the next few weeks to see how his legs will heal. There is hope, but he has a long way to go if he’s going to walk again.”

Matt could see Luke nod at the information from the corner of his eye, and the nurse let them in before walking away to give privacy.

Phil looked bad.

He couldn’t help the small intake of breath at the sight, just as Luke could help a mournful sigh either. From what Matt could see, there was bandage wrapped around the man’s chest, and a neck support to keep his head still. Several parts of his hands were covered as well; in one of the reports he’d heard but not passed along was mentioned Phil had gotten out of the car in an attempt to get to Teresa, and Matt could safely presume the injuries behind the white were results of glass and car debris piercing his skin as he had.

Luke was holding back sobs.

Without a word, without a thought, Matt pulled the man to his arms, for once in his life not caring about the window open to the hallway, as empty as it was. Luke stopped holding back, and Matt could feel him shaking in every cell of his body. All the grief and trauma and stress of the day—no, four hours—was finally coming out in the tiny hospital room. Matt had seen Luke cry once before, and never like this, and he didn’t fault him the slightest. He could feel Luke’s tears collecting on his shoulder, knowing he was creating a similar damp spot on Luke’s clothes. Everything about the day had turned for the worst from the moment he’d turned his back on Luke to retreat to his own chamber, and since then, they had not had a moment to get it out.

When he could feel Luke’s crying calming down, he pulled apart, just for a moment while he went to close the blinds, and Luke sat down. Matt pulled a chair from the wall to him, partially facing Phil, partially Luke. He took Luke’s hands to his, placing a kiss on his knuckles before making eye contact.

“Hey,” he kept his voice soft, just barely above a whisper as Luke was steadying his breaths, “he’s gonna be okay.”

“Yeah—but Teresa won’t.”

Pain flickered on Matt’s expression—there was nothing he could say to help that. “I know.”

“And people are expecting me to be King now. I—…”

There were a hundred ways Luke could finish that sentence, and Matt could see them circling on his face. He didn’t dare to fill in the blank, not out loud. They weren’t prepared for this. Luke’s father had lived so long, and even the chance of Teresa ruling to old age and not handing the throne to her children before dying of old age was minuscule. Luke had lived his entire life expecting the throne to pass him; Matt, when he had been young and a fresh face in the palace after his father’s passing and mother’s subsequent illness had become a national story, had seen safety in that. Teresa wasn’t supposed to die.

Especially not on the morning of her coronation. Not when she’d been just hours away from achieving what she had spent her whole life preparing for.

Luke didn’t deserve to lose his sister. He didn’t deserve to fear for Phil. And he didn’t deserve to have to hide it all from everyone else because of who his family was.

“You could wait a year.” The thought felt terrifying as it passed his lips, and hearing his own voice write the words into the quiet room made it no easier to process. “Wait for the next Day of Roses.”

Luke lifted his gaze, a mix of emotions too deep for Matt to decipher. When he didn’t say a word to oppose it, Matt continued: “If you don’t want the coronation to happen this soon.”

It wasn’t conventional, but even less conventional was breaking the tradition of crowning a King on any other day. Today was meant to be Teresa’s day. It wouldn’t feel right to crown someone else while the nation—and above all, Luke—was still grieving over the loss of a princess so close to being queen.

The moment was interrupted a little as the door opened—Matt pulled his hands away with practised speed—and the same male nurse peeking in from the doorway. “There’s another visitor for Mr Brooks.”

Matt could see Luke thinking about what he’d said. It wasn’t a small decision to make, and he didn’t want to rush it. “I’ll come out in a minute,” he replied to the nurse, and the door closed again. With both hands, Matt cupped Luke’s jaw, pulled him into a kiss he’d waited for hours to give, and let go.

“I’m gonna let that other person in.”

As he rose, Luke grabbed his hand, pulling Matt to another, more passionate kiss, the desperation for intimacy in the midst of all of this carried in the bittersweetness of it. “Thanks, Matt. For everything.”

“Anything you need.”

He stepped outside, let the brunette waiting for her turn in to the room, and texted JJ.

_Can you get me the room numbers of the others injured in the accident?_

While waiting for JJ’s response, there was time to type another message:

_Mae, I need to ask you a favour._


	4. Lady Douglas

Luke heard the door close behind Matt and another person entering. It took him a blink longer than it should have for him to realise he should stand up to greet the person, especially now that his security had left him on his own for a moment. He turned around to face the visitor: a brown woman with light brown hair and dark eyes. A woman he knew.

“Lady Douglas.” He couldn’t keep a small surprise from his voice. She seemed almost as surprised as he was.

“Your Highness,” countess Lisa Douglas spoke, giving a curtsy much deeper than felt right for the situation. Last time they’d met, they’d both been in formal attire in a ballroom: the change from that to her simple dress and his sweater—Matt’s sweater, no less—and a chance meeting in a hospital room was stark. “Should I leave you alone?”

“No, I–umh. I was just here to see Mr Brooks.”

“Yes—of course.”

Luke gestured towards the chair Matt had just vacated, and Lady Douglas bowed her head as she sat down, placing her bag and flowers down next to the chair. She glanced at Phil, took the image in, sorrow passing her face—Luke followed her gaze, the shadow of the emotional outburst passing his mind, reminding him to build up walls around it. It was time to be Crown Prince again.

“I didn’t know you know Phil,” he said to offer something to talk about to break the weighted silence.

“He used to work for my family’s estate before the royal palace. My brother would’ve paid him anything to get him to stay there—he said it wasn’t about money.” She gave a pointed look to Luke.

“Yeah, you know him. When he makes up his mind, there’s no turning him around.”

Lisa let out a laugh… and then the conversation died down. There were some birds chirping outside the opened window, and he could vaguely hear a news report coming from a few rooms away—other than that, it became silent for a minute.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, your Highness.”

The reminder of Teresa’s death hurt a lot more than he expected it to. Luke kept his eyes out to the window but could feel Lisa looking at him, the few intakes of breath sounding like she was trying to say something but feeling hesitant about it. When she moved in her chair, straightened herself up for courage, Luke turned to look at her.

“Can I pry something?” she asked, unsure if she was stepping over boundaries. The way she asked made him uncomfortable; she had done nothing in the past to invade his privacy, and her uncertainty gave the moment a strange edge. Luke didn’t answer but didn’t do anything to say ‘no’ either, so she continued: “I saw in the news you’d given permission for the Day of the Roses to go on as every year. Are you not planning to be coronated today?”

He understood her hesitancy now. “No.” It was the one thing he was sure; he would not take Teresa’s day. He could not sit on the throne Teresa was supposed to sit down today, not let the crown be pressed on his head when the person it had been fitted for had passed just hours ago. This was Teresa’s coronation—even if she wouldn’t stand as a Queen on the stage today, he would not steal the day for himself. Not in these circumstances.

“How long are you going to wait?”

“I don’t know. Matt—umh, my bodyguard, a friend—suggested I could wait to next year to keep the tradition. It’d give me time to prepare.”

Her confused look gave him an incentive to continue.

“Teresa was always going to be Queen. Her kids after her. Of course, there was always a chance she’d fall down the stairs or run away or just refuse the throne and I’d end up ruling, but for the last ten-twenty years, it’s felt so obvious she would become Queen and rule until she was sixty and then give the throne to one of her adopted kids. I was just the spare. And this I get a knock on my door this morning at six telling me I’ve just become King because my sister died on her way to the coronation. I haven’t known any longer than anyone else in Valosia. And I don’t know if I can run a country like she could have.”

It felt like too much information to give someone like this, even someone noble, even in a private setting, but the weight of the day gone past was finally crumbling him. Matt understood, but he hadn’t had the chance to say these things out loud to him—and Matt knew anyway. Now that he knew he was going to spend the rest of the day under camera lights, it felt like the last moment to get these things out to someone before it’d crush him.

“I know how you feel.” Lisa seemed genuinely empathetic. “I have five brothers. When I was born, everyone assured me I wouldn’t have to worry about the county. Then Daniel decided he wanted to stay in the military and Christopher married abroad, and suddenly there was just Marcus before I’d be in the line of inheritance. Marcus didn’t want the burden either but thankfully held on to it while I studied. Daniel and Christopher helped me learn what they’d been taught, and the rest I learnt on my own—and my younger brothers know what to do if I suddenly have to step down. But it was a tough two years.”

This was surprising. Despite knowing the Douglas lineage from lessons in childhood and the occasional tabloid headline, all of this was new information to Luke. He’d heard about Daniel and Christopher in passing, on the gossip circles in galas he’d paid little attention to, but had never stopped to think what it meant for the family. And Lady Douglas had done great work in keeping it from becoming a national story. He couldn’t even recall seeing articles about the county doing poorly.

“Wow.”

She seemed genuinely flattered by that for a moment before her expression turned serious again. “But I’m no Queen.”

A pause. “And Valosia has been without a monarch for almost a year already. Teresa didn’t marry or have an heir, and now the crown is compromised. You’re the last of your family, Prince Lucas. If anything happens to you…”

_‘…it’s the end of the Alvez lineage.’  
‘…who knows who will have the crown?’  
‘…the monarchy could end here.’_

None of the options with which she could finish the sentence was appealing, and she seemed to come to the same conclusion when she cleared her throat and closed her lips. The air had suddenly turned heavy—and as much as Luke wanted to think this all was his alone to deal with, she was right. For centuries Valosia had allowed the crown to pass to adopted children and to spouses to avoid this very situation, and Luke found himself, very briefly, feeling angry at Teresa for waiting so long and leaving him in this situation before rectifying himself.

She didn’t know. And neither did you.

A knock on the door shattered through the tension. “It’s me.”

A welcome relief. “Come in, Simmons,” Luke called out, and the doorway opened, Matt stepped halfway into the room. Luke could hear the crinkle of plastic as he moved, and while the door covered the source of it, Luke could make a strong guess towards ‘flowers’.

“Am I interrupting anything, your Highness?”

“No, I was just—…” Luke stood up. “Leaving.”

“I’m sorry, your Highness,” Lisa voiced, “if I overstepped.”

“No, not at all, Lady Douglas… Thank you.” She stayed sat down, and it came to Luke she was likely planning to stay until Phil woke up. “If he wakes up, will you tell him I came by?”

“Of course, your Highness.”

It didn’t feel right to give longer goodbyes, so Luke simply exited the room after Matt.

Luke’s guess for the sound of the crinkling had been correct: in his left hand, Matt was carrying three bouquets of varying colours, each with a card hanging from the Luke could just barely make out printed text.

“What’s this?”

Matt’s expression turned from serious to slightly sheepish as he offered the roses towards Luke to give a better look.

“Flowers. For the three other people who got hurt in the explosion. I sent one for the family of the one person who died. I told them that if they want someone from the palace to attend the funeral, it could be arranged. But these were coming here, so I wanted to get your signature while we are here.”

Matt offered a fountain pen to Luke, and without saying a word, Luke signed the cards one by one, quickly giving a glance to the well-written cards giving condolences and offering help should any be needed. They weren’t written by Matthew, he could tell from the wording, but knew better than to ask at this point.

“You’ve thought of everything.”

Matt passed the flowers along to a shorter woman Luke hadn’t noticed before who left with them. When he turned back to Luke, his face had turned serious again. “I actually wanted to pull you out because I have news.”

“The head of National Security ruled the explosion as a result of attempted arson. There had been leaking gas pipes in the building, so when some anarchist tried to set the building fire as a protest, presumably towards Teresa, it had blown up instead of just burning.”

Luke stared at him for a moment, completely frozen in his place. The emotional whiplash seized all thought process, left him speechless until he could properly take in the situation. “ _Arson?_ ”

“The guy is in the wind. Barnes, Prentiss, and Atwood are giving a press conference about it now. JJ is waiting for us outside. They want you in the palace to give a speech as soon as possible.”

A small beat. “We should go.”

 


	5. Gazebo

Luke’s speech was on Channel 1. The press conference on national security was on Channel 2. The remaining national networks were layering one video footage on top of the other, trying to cover both topics at the same time while interrupting both with expert and correspondent opinions, and there had been very few moments in a few decades when Matt had felt this lonely in the palace as he did when he was sitting in the empty private lounge room upstairs, TV on, unable to concentrate on the speech happening outside he could not attend because he wasn’t nobility nor ‘essential’ security detail, or the press conference he couldn’t attend for in the eyes of the nation’s politicians, he was more comparable to a viscount than someone worth listening to professionally.

There were moments when Matt himself wasn’t sure where he landed on the social ladder.

He had been 14 when his father died suddenly of a heart attack, and his mother had a mental breakdown than lowered her immune system to nothing, leading her to be hospitalised quickly after. For an alarmingly long time, Matt had continued life, pretending nothing had happened, gone to school and forged his mother’s signature where he’d had to, working the evenings to provide for himself and towards his mother’s medical costs because there was no one else to turn to. Eventually, he’d gotten caught after being a victim of a mugging and had to tell the whole story to the police, where it’d quickly leaked to the news that had turned it into the feel-good story of the week. Somewhere along the line, the Royal family had learnt of the story and, with the consent of Matt’s fading away mother, Matt had become a ‘protege’ of the Royal family for his remaining teenage years until he would go serve his legal duty in the army. The whole thing had reeked of a PR stunt back then---but the barely-adult Crown Princess Teresa and nearly-the-same-age-as-him Prince Lucas had enjoyed having young company running on the stone floors of the hallways, and Matt had been glad to be welcomed back when his and Luke’s mandatory draft ended.

It all left him in an odd position where he wasn’t quite a diplomat, not quite a noble, not quite family. People respected him for his close relationship with the prince and his pledge to act as the man’s bodyguard when they were out in public, but it left him outside of anything that mandated an official rank. It left him alone inside the cool palace walls, watching the first speech of his partner as a monarch from television when it would have felt more right to stand up there with him.

_“Today, we celebrate life, and the summer that will soon grace our country. There will be time to grieve, and time to say goodbyes, when we lay my sister and your queen to rest this Sunday. Today, we celebrate this kingdom, that will rise beneath the strongest layer of frost and winter, as my father, the late King Gabriel, and above all my sister Teresa, would have wanted…”_

Somehow, being able to tell which parts were from the original speech Luke had prepared for the day and which he had hastily edited with a ballpoint pen in the back of the car on the way here made Matt’s gut twist even further. Luke’s emotional state was written all over him, hiding the rawness of the words from the public but only making it even more obvious to Matt.

I need air. He turned off the television, opening updating articles on both events on his phone he pocketed immediately, and left the room. The front gardens would be filled with people listening to Luke, so Matt headed up the stairs, into Luke’s bedroom, and through the hidden passage.

Besides working as a discreet way to travel from one bedroom to another, half of the hallways---including the one going from Luke’s bedroom to Matt’s---had fire escapes built in them, built most likely around the time the palace originally was to act as a way for the royalty and trustworthy staff to get out the back of the palace in an invasion. Luke and Teresa had found them in their childhood, and by the time Matt began living with them, the siblings had already mastered the art of sneaking out from the palace in the safety of the nightfall to go play in the maze or the decorative ponds the King and Queen had forbidden them from going to. Later down the line, it had become a way for Matt to sneak out of the palace completely when he’d needed a touch with the normal world, and a way for him and Luke to sneak into the maze to talk and sit and pretend in the open air, surrounded by flowers, that they weren’t hiding the extent of their relationship while maintaining their privacy.

Matt wasn’t sure which of those experiences he was looking for now as he climbed down the old metal ladders in darkness, suddenly hearing Teresa’s laughter too loudly in his head to concentrate on rational thought as he walked in the lightless room caressing the wall to find the door, familiar scent of dust and old places triggering memories of the three of them running out into the moonlight.

It wasn’t moonlight that greeted him on the other side though, but harsh daylight of a sunny May afternoon. Matt exited hastily, not giving his eyes time to adjust before pulling the door hidden in a ‘decorative’ archway closed behind him and turning around to walk into the gardens as if he’d always been there.

The back wasn’t empty either, but it was significantly more peaceful and quiet than the front of the palace. Aside from a few curious visitors who had come too late to find a comfortable place to listen to the speech in and a few reporters taking pictures of the roses and the staff preparing the bush from which Luke would cut the first full rose of the summer, the garden was mostly vacant. No one paid mind to Matt as he slipped into the flower maze, tracking down a familiar path to the stone gazebo that sat in one of the larger openings in it, sat down on the stairs, leaning to a pillar, and simply stared at the sky.

The day had been a lot. And not just for Luke, though he’d spent every hour since waking up in Luke’s bed worrying about him---and in the mess of all of that, not given too long of a thought to his own stress levels. While Teresa and he hadn’t been the closest of friends, they were bound by the inevitable companionship that came with being one of the few people under the age of 20 in a household built around traditions, rules, and demand to act adult in any situation it was physically possible. Seeing Luke’s grief, particularly the overlapping trauma of losing two of his closest family members hit too close to home, too---the first visit to a public hospital since Matt’s mother’s passing did little to help the associations.

And then there was Luke.

Matt had, once upon a time, until roughly 5:55 am this morning, hoped there’d come a day when they’d no longer live in the shadows. That he and Luke could slowly start showing affection in public, subtly at first, then more and more as time went on, that after Luke’s father had died and once Teresa took the crown, they’d fade into the background, and once Teresa’s heir was certain to be the one ruling after her, he and Luke could admit their relationship to the public, taking the edge off a revelation of a relationship between a monarch and his childhood friend bodyguard.

That window had slammed closed this morning, with enough strength to open dozens of others in front of them without leaving any guidance on which one to follow.

A drop of warm water passed his jaw and fell on his clothes, and it was only at that point that he noticed the hot tears gathering on his eyes and falling down his cheeks. The constant feeling of being overwhelmed without a proper outlet had finally caught up to him, and Matt allowed himself a few long blinks to get it out before wiping them away on the sleeve of his sweater.

He sat there for long, only the buzzing of his phone giving a resemblance of a sense of time. There was too much to think about---moreover, his own situation was too uncertain to even think about it, and that made it much easier for him to concentrate on anyone else his mind crossed. It was almost comforting to let his thoughts land on the world of politics, check the news every so often to see how the day’s events were being retold in written word, and allow himself to get lost on thinking about Valosia’s place in the EU, Clara’s job in the UN, what sort of backlash anti-monarchy anarchy groups would face in the light of the death once the government would be called together tomorrow morning. Anything besides the grief and the impact on his personal life and how the effects of a deceased family member would ripple through the palace for the next months. Swimming through questions without clear-cut answers allowed his mind to wander away and get lost deep, deep in his thoughts as he awaited for the formal part of the day to come to an end.

Deep enough that it wasn’t until he felt a touch on his shoulders, after not processing the sound of leather shoes on marble coming his way, that he woke up to the present day.

A familiar hand was held towards him, a single white rose as it’s offering, freshly cut from the bush. Matt took the rose from Luke, feeling the water droplets on the petals from where it must’ve just been watered before Luke had arrived to cut it.

“Happy Day of the Roses,” Luke said, sitting down by him.

“You found me.”

“You weren’t in your room, so I asked around, and, well, someone had seen you in the garden looking stressed. So I looked here first.”

Not exactly quantum physics, then. Matt let himself be pulled into a kiss, taking more in from it than he’d thought he needed---there was a familiarity in it that he desperately needed right now.

“Are you done?” he asked, noting that Luke was still in his formal attire.

“Yeah. I just came straight here.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Silence fell over the scene---Matt found himself not minding. It wasn’t the tentative, fearful kind of silence that had been present in the waiting room, nor the mourning kind that clouded Phil’s hospital room… it was just silence. Long enough to just breath in, not hear a single camera clicking, not feeling the need to be somewhere or falling behind on anything. Just take a few breaths to recalibrate.

Luke was ready first. “I told JJ to let the media know I’m not getting coronated until a year from now.”

A sigh of relief. “How did she take it?”

“She tried to warn me. I told her I’d already considered all.”

Matt leaned back to rest his head against Luke’s chest. “And the public?”

“We’ll see.”


	6. The Safety of The Crown

A sea of concerned faces turned to him as he got into the small dining room that had, during the course of the few passing weeks, turned into the unofficial meeting room between him and the major politicians of the country. Matt was on his heels, dutifully closing the doors behind him before walking to Mr Rossi and the rest of the security detail on the wall while Luke sat down. It had been three weeks after Teresa’s death, and Luke had taken the advice of both Matt and his personal doctor to stay out of politics for the immediate aftermath while he was still going through the grieving process, but the news cycle hadn’t allowed him to stay away from it as much as unable to do anything.

“Your Highness,” Barnes greeted as the room stood up, muting the cable news running in the background. Luke motioned them to sit down, keeping his face passive despite knowing them to have been watching the exact same story he was on his way down. The same man the channel had called was still talking, the reel running on the bottom line with little changes from Luke’s last check: “Political expert: Prince Lucas’s stalling is ‘already hurting’ Valosia.”

“Prime Minister,” Luke responded, prompting her to begin the meeting.

Barnes collected herself, clicking her pen and settling ready to write on one paper as she read from another: “As I’m sure has not escaped your notice—” Luke nodded, “the people are expressing their concerns towards your reign. Both as your abilities as a political leader, and over the uncertainty of the next coronation.”

“I’ve given the public a date.”

“Yes, you did. As did your sister before you. But with a year still ahead, and the foreign leaders having uncertainty of your legal capabilities before coronation, there’s concern in the air within both the public and international relations if following tradition in the middle of what was undoubtedly a state of crisis was the best move.”

At the mention of international affairs, Barnes turned her eyes towards Prentiss, who nodded to convey she’d be glad to continue, before turning to Luke. “I’m afraid the Prime Minister is right. While older allies of Valosia and the people who interacted with Teresa before her passing know of our traditions and know to treat you as if you were King in the absence of one, countries Valosia doesn’t have that extended history with seem unsure how to proceed with diplomacy… and many of our existing allies don’t know what to expect from your leadership.”

The issues weren’t new information to him—many of those points he had heard and read, some over and over again while trying to keep up with the events of his nation—but it still felt jarring. It was very different to read it from media outlets than hear it with the voices he associated with trust and authority. Luke nodded solemnly, absorbing the information… and, perhaps above all, trying to find ways to fix it. He’d hoped that he could, with time, show himself worthy of the crown without needing to resort to flashy publicity stunts… It’d felt like a good strategy, especially in the footsteps of Teresa’s months before her coronation. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure any more.

Barnes raised her voice. “There’s also an another matter. The safety of the crown. Though, I think perhaps Mr Atwood would be best suited to speak on this.”

“Thank you, Prime Minister,” the Head of National Security, stated, ending the absent playing with his pen upon being given his turn to speak. “I would like to schedule a meeting on this, in private, later with you, but it’s maybe best I give a run-down of the matter now.” It wasn’t quite a pause that he held, but the man showed hesitation in the way his eyes flickered between his papers and Luke’s eyes. “As you know, and I’m very sorry to bring this up, you are the last living member of the Alvez family.”

Luke couldn’t help a small, sharp intake of breath. The matter had been an uncomfortable elephant in the room—for himself. Ever since the day of Teresa’s passing and her subsequent funeral, the media had not failed to reiterate the matter, spicing the storytelling with speculation on how Luke would carry on the legacy, reminding the audience at home where the leadership would fall if he would pass as unexpectedly as his sister. The staff and the people around him had been considerate enough to refrain from mentioning the topic, but it had always been a matter of time when the silence would be broken. It had to be, eventually, even if only in the name of the nation.

It still struck him.

“Since you are not married, and especially since you aren’t King yet as far as the constitution is concerned, there is no obvious next of kin who would take upon the duties you have been given now in your sister’s passing. The constitution declares any event of the entire Royal family ceasing to exist as an immediate national emergency, and nobody wants that, especially not now.”

Another difficult breath.

“Now, I know there’s a lot in your plate right now. There are things we can do, things you can do, to secure the throne. Right now, however, while you’re still in your transition period, I would suggest increasing your security detail, especially when you are moving outside of the palace. Both for your safety and to give the people the message that you’re not gonna be taken down so easily. I would like to sit down with you and Mr Simmons to discuss specifics more in detail—if Mr Simmons is still planning to stay in charge of your personal safety, that is.”

The man’s eyes didn’t raise from Luke.

“I am, sir,” Matt responded from behind him.

“That’s alright then. I’ll find a date for our little chat, in the meanwhile… You should keep in mind, as it nears the anniversary of your father’s passing, Valosia has been without a King or a Queen for almost two years. Even if you have clear-cut plans about what you’re gonna do, the public certainly doesn’t. We can tell them to keep going with their daily lives for some time, but eventually, your Highness, they’re gonna look for guidance. And you need to rise up to that.”

It looked, for a moment, as if he’d planned to continue the statement—then the silence went on for too long, and Barnes cleared her throat.

“Does anyone have anything to add?” Silence filled the room. “In that case, I suggest we end this meeting here to keep it short. The parliament will be in session in two hours, those to whom this concerns will have until then to have their smoke breaks. Thank you for your time, Prince Lucas.”

Luke stood up, giving the room the permission to clear out. He faced Matt while people emptied their seats behind him, security detail around them pairing up with their protectees. Matt had a glimmer of anticipation in his eye, something unbothered by the bleak tone of the conversation; Luke raised his eyebrow.

Matt simply gave him a quick nod, telling him to be patient.

As the last people in the room—Prentiss and chief of staff Hotchner—left the room, Matt took a few long steps behind them to close the double doors, turning the handle to lock them, giving it a few tugs to make sure it did. He then turned around, walking back to Luke on the back wall. It was enough for Luke’s stress levels to rise… until he saw the look in Matt’s eyes: not worry, not his forcibly neutral expression, nothing to indicate the danger he seemed to be isolating them away from.

Just gentle and slightly eager.

“Matt, what a—” Luke’s words got cut off when Matt took hold of his collar, quickly pulling the prince into a kiss, lips in controlled collision with Luke’s, making him forget how to talk even after Matt’s mouth moved to his jawline.

“You have too much going on in your head.” To where jaw meets neck. “You’re stressed.” By Luke’s throat. “I’m giving you something else to think about.”

“Matt…”

“Barnes said two hours.” There was nothing cautious in the way Matt’s mouth was moving, nor in how his fingers had slipped under the collar, tugging it down for as much access he could get before getting permission to start taking it off him. “There’s no security cameras here.” Matt pulled him to a brief, demanding kiss. “Your bedroom is too emotionally loaded.”

And then he separated, a pause long enough for Luke to hear the lust in his breath and see the expression: let me help you. A pause long enough to hear he himself wasn’t unaffected by it, either. “Two hours,” Matt pleaded.

Past Matt’s shoulders, Luke could see a couple of takeaway coffee cups that had been left there by the attendants of the meeting. He turned them around, now his back by the table and Matt’s by the wall, and knocked one over, remnants of cold coffee spilling on the table and dripping to the floor below. His eyes turned to Matt’s, the other anticipating an explanation.

“Now the table needs to be cleaned anyway.”


	7. Mischief Managed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the SFW version of this chapter, to not mess with the rating for the sake of a few individual chapters but also to give an option to those who don't like reading smut.  
> The full (much longer version) can be found on my Tumblr @ https://ssasimmons.tumblr.com/post/185115199788/all-on-the-princes-seal-ch-vii

“Hey…” Luke started once they’d both gotten their breath back, still positioned the same, with him sitting on the hundred-year-old table, Matt standing between his legs; Matt’s hands on his thighs, Luke’s on both sides of Matt’s neck and both nude in the post-sex bliss. “Thanks.”

Matt let out a laugh to nothingness, amused by something his mind linked the situation to but apparently deemed too dumb of a joke to say out loud, as he opened his eyes fully to meet Luke’s, amusement changing to genuine emotion as he understood Luke wasn’t thanking him for having sex but for the intimacy overload and intense de-stressing Matt had no doubt intended this all to be the moment it had popped in his crazy head that ‘sex in the dining room’ was not only a good idea but an idea good enough to plan ahead and come prepared to. “Yeah—we needed that.”

“I needed that.”

“Look… it was good.” Matt gave Luke a quick kiss on the lips to sell his words, before giving a quick glance over the room. “A little unorthodox…”

Luke started laughing. Properly, with easy, in a way that he hadn’t for the whole week while bouncing the nation’s matters in his head—a matter that currently could not be further from his mind. “Yeah, you think?”

Matt started laughing too. Luke could feel himself being transported back in time, to a hundred other situations like this, when they’d been done something wholly unsuited for a prince, gotten away with it, and just been able to laugh and soak in each others’ company, both two decades ago and just two months ago. The carelessness of those moments, this moment, and hearing them echoing in their shared laugh was addictive, tempting… and just what he’d needed. A small moment of locked doors and intimacy and throwing the rules into the corner without needing to worry about the consequences, and the fact that Matt had managed to put all of those ingredients in the same plan without Luke ever saying a word just made him love the man more.

And then the laugh died out, decibel by decibel, and though the happiness didn’t go anywhere, the reality started to peek around the corner. Matt tucked himself in, pulling up his zipper and buttoning his pants; in the span of ten seconds, Matt was already halfway into looking respectable again while Luke’s clothes were still scattered around the room. Matt tossed him his underwear and trousers, and Luke dropped down from the table, starting to dress with minimal effort: he’d need to change anyway before meeting the parliament, so he just needed to get upstairs and to his bedroom without causing a scandal. He slipped his shoes on while the now-shirted Matt went to the end of the table where his jacket and shirt had slid off, pushing them back to Luke the same way they’d ended away from him, and Luke tossed the trash they’d created into the empty paper cup to hide the evidence. Matt’s eyes landed on the coffee spill.

“I’ll go—…”

He didn’t need to end the sentence. “Yeah.”

Matt disappeared through the side door, presumably to go fetch paper towels from the kitchen to clean up the worst and let the staff know the room should be cleaned to… umh, get the rest of it off too, and Luke put his shirt on, opting to leave the jacket off as Matt had, letting it rest on his arm as he wait—

A door handle was pushed down.

The sound startled him, and he sprinted down to the double doors to open the lock, and the doors as soon as the person on the other side had seemed to realise they weren’t opening from their side. The realisation came to him that there was no way he could warn Matt of the surprise visitor, and the best he could do was hope the person inside was not someone they lived with, someone that could pick up on the less-than-perfected state of the two too easily.

The door opened.

_Emily Prentiss._ A mental sigh of relief.

She had a small look of surprise on her face, whether about the door being locked, being opened so quickly after her attempt, or about who had locked the door while seemingly on his own devices—most likely, a succeeding compilation of all of the elements. “I’m sorry, your Highness, I, uh…”

“You’re not interrupting anything.”

With that, Luke could hear the door on the other end of the room opening, and Matt walked in, a small pile of paper towels in his hand. He had time to meet the eyes of both Luke and Emily, and vice versa before, all three were able to recover from the stunned silence.

Emily first. “I’m so sorry to intrude, I left my coffee cup here, I wanted to pick it up before—…”

Luke raised the cup in his hand, using it to gesture towards the coffee puddle Matt had moved to clean. “Sorry, I knocked it over. We were in the middle of,” the shortest pause for thought Luke had ever taken, “discussing security matters with Matt. I can buy you a new one.”

Given that the matter had just been the topic of conversation in the meeting an hour earlier, Emily seemed to buy it, the pause and vagueness of the excuse passing as required need-to-know secrecy. Emily sighed, a _‘yes, of course’_ expression very briefly going through her face, before she spoke again: “Oh, it doesn’t matter, it would be cold by now anyway. I just wanted to come back to throw it away so I don’t end up on the bad side of the cleaning staff. At a place like this, I have to assume they’re all trained hit-men anyway.”

As she joked, she reached for the cup, and Luke instinctively and entirely too quickly pulled it away from her, the contents of it criminating enough for the reflex to kick in before he had time to realise how it looked. At any other time, he’d been in trouble explaining it.

This time, Emily’s outstretched hand had a diamond ring in it he’d definitely not noticed before. “Oh?” He gave a pointed look to it, and the woman herself seemed to only now realise what she’d done, expression turning from surprise to happiness incredibly quickly.

“Uh, yeah. Clara… Clara proposed to me. A week ago. I didn’t want to put it on until we had an engagement party on the works. Oh, speaking of which…” Her focus was turned to her handbag to find something from there. Matt joined them—Luke could see the man was smiling even wider than he was.

Emily’s gaze lifted back up, two small envelopes in her hand offered to the men. “Your invitations. I planned to give them after the parliamentary session, but since the cat’s out of the bag…”

“Thank you.” Luke took his envelope, Matt his.

“It’s just a small thing, between friends, mostly, some family. I should… probably call Clara, tell her you know, and…”

Matt interrupted her rambling by hugging her. “Congratulations, Emily.”

“Congratulations,” Luke was quick to echo, just for the sake of not interrupting the friends’ moment, “pass the word to Clara as well.”

“I will.” Emily said as she and Matt separated. “Sorry, did you still have something…?”

Luke met Matt’s gaze, the act of ‘we think we’re done discussing business’ all too well-rehearsed by now. Matt took the cup, shoving the wet paper towel in there.

“No, I think we’re done. You’re due a lunch break, too.”

Matt nodded, holding up the cup. “Thank you. I’ll toss this out while I go.” With that, he was past Emily and on his way out. “And again: congratulations. Both of you.”

Emily smiled back at him, turning back to face Luke when Matt left towards the main hall.

“Come on, I’ll replace that coffee for you.”


	8. Call

The engagement made for a news headline for a few short days—still longer than Matt had expected it to, and he could only presume his and Luke’s personal friendships with the happy couple as what allowed the story to live past its expected lifespan, especially once the online entertainment news got a whiff of the engagement party and could spend a filler article or two contemplating on the guest list. Especially Luke’s apparent bachelor status was a reoccurring theme in the headlines, and if there had been speculation about his dating life earlier, now it was difficult to navigate social media—any media—without seeing graphics with every woman who had crossed the palace doors within the last three years linked to pictures of Luke with heart-decorated arrows. Over the years, Matt had managed to tune most of it out, but more recently, either because of the intensity or the why had started to become harder to swallow.

Coffee, much easier.

The staff kitchen wasn’t empty, but it was empty enough for people to pay him little mind as he sat by the sink, crumbs of his breakfast on two plates ahead of him, his second cup of coffee warming his palm, phone on the counter as he scrolled down on the small touchscreen to catch up on the news between glances at his wristwatch. Usually, this would count as a luxury of its own—a day without the distractions of the royal family, a day where he could go back to being just-whoever, just-Matt—but right now, with the news alerts from tabloids bombarding his screen of news he’d rather not see right now, it only served to strengthen Matt’s need for separation.

The screen was turned off with a frustrated sigh, and Matt quickly put down the dishes to the sink before heading out of the kitchen, foyer, and then the front garden with long strides, barely nodding people as he passed. It was meant to be a day off, and there was only one way he could cut himself off social media and news alerts well enough to relax in any sense of the word.

In fifteen minutes, Matt was standing in front of a garage door, within walking distance from the palace but in an area not kept well enough to attract crowds. On the same street—in the perfect midpoint of too close to tourists to attract anyone looking for class but too close to the palace to bring the cost of living low enough for anyone not—the rich came to hide their mistresses, businessmen stored art they had no right to own, street racers the cars not allowed on the Valosian streets… the block had a reputation for having a space for anyone who wanted to hide a secret.

With a key turn and a quick pull up of the garage door, Matt was face-to-face with his: a sleek black motorcycle, with plates belonging to an old friend in order to keep the vehicle outside of the palace staff’s (and above all,  _the King’s_ ) knowledge. The helmet was hanging from the handle—not where he’d left it, so Jack has stopped by—and a leather jacket from the small set of hooks on the wall; it was all Matt needed with him at the moment. There was a change of clothes more designed for riding in a bag in the corner, but his time was too limited for that: the priority right now was becoming unrecognisable, with the darkened shield covering what little of his identity the helmet didn’t, and the jacket would help him blend into the traffic in a way a suit wouldn’t.

In a minute, Matt had changed his clothes and was out of the garage with the bike between his legs, heading towards the big roads.

“Call Jack.”

“Calling Jack Garrett,” his phone responded, followed by a pause and dialling tones. Matt turned towards the main roads, diving between cars through any gap wide enough for the bike to get to the highway faster. In the last exit, the dial tones stopped.

“Simmons.”

“Hey, Jack.” A pause as the noises coming from the background of Jack’s voice pieced together. “You in the cockpit?”

“Just landed in Brussels, gathering my things to leave. You sound like you’re on the road.”

“Guilty as charged.” A familiar ease started to seep into Matt’s bones from just the small talk with Jack. There was a purpose to it—to break the ice, warm up a little bit, before the air felt like they could finally address the elephant in the room: they never talked one-on-one like this, without the presence of Clara or Mae, unless it was about _something—_ especially not unprompted.

“How’s Luke?”

Matt couldn’t help the sharp inhale at the question—a perfectly natural follow-up, but Jack wasn’t ignorant enough of the news to ask it innocently. He gave the gas a small twist, increasing his speed once again, the roar of the engine grounding him while he focused on bypassing a truck while answering the question. “Oh, you know.” An innocent enough answer, with a slight edge: _you read the news, you_  know  _how he is_.

Jack got the message. “Yeah.” The edge seemed to have been enough of a deterrent; Jack didn’t press further. “Where you’re heading?”

“Teresa had this charity project up north.” Truck passed. “Huella Valosia—animal shelter, pet rescue project, that sort of stuff. I’m gonna go look at the cats they have.”

“You’re not a cat person.”

It came so matter-of-factly, all Matt could do was laugh. “Yeah, no. It’s an engagement gift for Emily and Clara from the royal family.”

“And you’re the one picking it up?”

“Well, yeah, I volunteered.”

“You’re whipped, Simmons.”

Another laugh, this time joined by Jack. “I could use the ride alone.”

“Outside of the news cycle?”

“If you can call it that.” A frustrated groan. “If I have to read one more fucking gossip article about who Luke is apparently dating—…”

“You just need to shut it out.” Jack didn’t leave Matt room to protest. “You’ve lived that life since you were fifteen. You knew how to ignore it when you were new to it, you know how to do it now. So why aren’t you?”

 _…Goddamnit._ All Matt had to offer as an explanation was what he and Luke had now—but they’d gone this through before too. Maybe not this intensively, but they had. And he’d seen Teresa waltz through the same headlines effortlessly—there was no excuse here. “I don’t know.”

Even though Matt had nothing to conceal the length of his pause, there was no victory in Jack’s voice following the admission. “Well, if you don’t know why it’s different… do you know what you can do to change it?”

 _Replace the narrative._ Matt hadn’t considered it—he’d hoped that Luke’s policies would do that for him, but getting anything through was suffering from the instability of Luke’s image before the public, and the lack of action was further causing the image to suffer, creating a vicious cycle Matt had mostly just hoped would pass over them eventually… but Jack could have a point: working in a new headline could be just what they needed.

“Maybe.”

“You’re a smart guy, Simmons. It’s your call.”

“Thanks.”

“Speaking of which—Karen’s calling me.”

Matt laughed. “Yeah, you should pick that up.”

“Wife priority and so forth.” Matt could hear Jack exiting the plane.

“Yeah. Thanks for the chat.”

“Simmons—you gonna be alright?”

Matt let out an amused breath—the smile lingered. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. Anything comes up—give me a call.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

With that, the call closed.


End file.
